How Once Upon a Time Is Like Lost

5 Ways the Once Upon a Time Winter Finale Is Like Lost

The Once Upon a Time Winter finale is a doozy, shaking up the whole series and giving us a ton of questions that won't be answered until it comes back March 9. It's a mind-blowing episode, and it reminded me of Lost in a lot of ways, which isn't that crazy, considering that Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, the creators of Once, also worked on Lost. One may be a series about fairy-tale characters and the other about a plane crash, but we noticed a few similarities in the Once Upon a Time Winter finale that are too reminiscent of Lost to ignore. Here are the five ways we were reminded:

The Alternate Timeline

Like Lost, Once has been employing flashbacks throughout the entire series, but this week is the first time we see an alternate timeline used. At the end of the episode, Emma and Henry are in New York a year later, living with memories Regina gave them of having had a happy life together. In Lost, characters have what's known as "flash-sideways" in season six, in which they live out alternate scenarios from what we had seen before. Even though their memories are fake, the scene where Emma makes Henry breakfast, oblivious to the whole Storybrooke situation, is classic Lost.

Hook's "We Have to Go Back!" Moment

For reasons we don't know yet, Hook gets out of fairy-tale land and into New York to find Emma and Henry. He may not say the words "We have to go back" exactly (he says, "You have to remember"), but it's weirdly similar. Here's the original Lost scene:

See the rest of the similarities when you keep reading.

The Character in the Coffin

The Blue Fairy had been killed by the Shadow previously, and when Charming, Hook, and Tinker Bell go to retrieve her wand, we see her like this. Look familiar?

Locke, by the way, came back, as did the Blue Fairy. Which leads us to . . .

The Body-Switching

Peter Pan and Henry were in each other's bodies until the Winter finale, and body-switching is an important component to Lost's later seasons, as Locke's body ended up being a vessel for the Smoke Monster. (And don't even get me started on how the curse mist is like the Smoke Monster too).

A Main Character's Life Being Sacrificed For the Greater Good

In Lost, Ben kills Locke as a sacrifice, using his dead body to re-create a scenario that will get the Oceanic Six back to the island. And this week in Once, Rumplestiltskin makes the ultimate sacrifice of his life, killing himself and Peter Pan in order to save the whole group.

Though Lost references are sprinkled throughout OUAT, and there are some story similarities in some instances (to me the Neverland Island had many similarities to the Lost Island), I have to disagree a bit about your comparisons. Locke's body was never a vessel for the Smoke Monster. The Smoke monster took on Locke's form, but Locke's body was in the silver coffin and it's reveal was the proof that what looked like Locke was, indeed, an imposter. I might be mistaken, but I don't think when Ben killed Locke he did it as a sacrifice so they could return. He didn't find out about the need for that to happen until he met Eloise, and John Locke gave him that name right before Ben strangled him. Ben killed Locke out of spite, in my opinion.

A few other comparisons worth pointing out:
1. The final scene (before the We Have To Go Back moment) opens with the alarm clock (at 8:15 a.m.)and fairly cinematic scene which is very similar to the opening scene with Desmond (when we first meet him) - Season 2
2. The kiss to try and "wake" Emma up (Hurley/Libby) in Season 6.
3. The curse taking over and having everyone disappear had the same kind of feeling as the island disappearing in Season 4.

I actually found Rumple's death much more similar to Charlie's than Locke's.
1. Happens in season 3
2. First MAJOR character death
3. Sacrifices self in an effort to save the others, but ultimately failing and having their eventual salvation come another way.
4. Both characters had a love interest played by Emilie de Ravin